Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 13, 1994 TAG: 9402140341
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: John Arbogast
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Certain tasks, such as pruning off broken limb stubs, should be done promptly, while other repair work can wait until winter's end. Let's take a brief look.
As I discussed in a recent column, winter injury to trees and shrubs can be divided into three categories: desiccation or drying, freezing, and breakage.
Owners of birch trees as well as other plants that can lose their shape will know that bending over of plant parts can be added to the breakage category. Limbs or trunks that were bowed down due to the ice load but did not snap either can be tied into a normal shape (shrubs and small plants) once nice weather arrives or simply left alone (suggestion for trees) to naturally resume their natural position.
Breakage damage should be cleaned up as soon as possible after the weather is nice enough to work outside. Promote plant healing by making a smooth pruning cut at an appropriate location below the JOHN ARBOGAST jagged wound where the branch or trunk part snapped off. Pruning paints are not needed. In the case of tree trunks where the top broke, the properly placed pruning cut below the "snap point" should be at a 45-degree angle.
Except for roses, leafy evergreens seem to suffer more freezing and/or desiccation damage than deciduous plants.
After broken parts are removed, wait until late winter or early spring (late spring for crepe myrtles) to work. Scrape bark in small scattered areas before removing dead-looking branches or portions. A green layer revealed under the outer bark indicates life in that branch part, and the hope is that living buds that will produce new leaves in spring. A light pruning might be in order for those plants to stimulate the buds to produce.
Dead twigs or branches should be pruned back to just above a live bud or just outside the branch collar. Plants such as the Southern red tip photinia might show all or a few dead above-ground parts. Come spring, they might produce new growth from the roots.
Special care should be given this spring and summer to plants injured by winter '94. An application of granular fertilizer, like 10-10-10, or liquid fertilizer, like Miracle Grow, to the soil around winter-damaged plants in the spring will help support new growth to compensate for injuries.
During dry times that may occur during the growing season, provide proper soakings to all landscape plants, especially those recovering from damage.
\ Q: I have a peach tree that flowers in the spring as it should. However, after the peaches form and just as they look like they are going to ripen, they rot. Also, some of the leaves on the end of the branches turn brown. What can I do? R.M., Narrows
A: You have described some of the visual symptoms of the destructive fungus disease of peach and nectarine trees commonly called "brown rot." This fungus attacks the blossoms, twigs and fruits, but the greatest loss from brown rot occurs from fruit rot.
The brown rot fungus constantly multiplies its sources of infection, so that the disease can become more destructive each year if damp weather occurs. This tells us that good fruit tree area sanitation is of major importance in controling brown rot.
If you have not already done so, look for and remove all old shriveled rotted peaches on the ground or left on your peach tree, because these contain reproductive stages of the brown rot fungus. Another important part of sanitation is not neglecting proper spraying and pruning on plum and apricot trees that might be near your peach tree. Sources of infection could come from those trees.
Several cultural practices are important to reduce brown rot infection. Maintain clear areas around and under your peach tree by regular mowings during the spring and summer. This promotes good air circulation that will help dry the fruit and leaves and thus help reduce infection.
Prune your peach tree before growth starts to eliminate weak and dead wood, including small twigs, that have been killed by brown rot last year and also to open the canopy so that good spray penetration can be obtained. This spring, do not use excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer around your peach tree (example: lawn that is fertilized). Then, when peach fruit first forms, be sure to thin fruits to give each room to grow and space to receive sprays and air.
After conducting these practices, brown rot of your peaches can be combatted by protecting the fruit from the early pink stage of bud development (flower buds in the spring have opened and color is just beginning to show) through harvest with a repeated applications of a recommended fungicide.
If you have just the one peach tree, you might want to use one of those general-purpose home fruit spray mixtures that contains fungicide and insecticide. Check the label first before purchasing to see if the fungicide contained will protect against brown rot. The fungicide Captan was used in mixtures for this purpose in past years, but I don't have '94 recommendations from Virginia Tech yet.
\ Send short questions about your lawn, garden, plants or insects to Dear John, c/o the Roanoke Times & World-News, P. O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010-2491.
John Arbogast is the agricultural extension agent for Roanoke.
by CNB